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Chapter 1: What is the wrong way to encourage kids to eat healthy?
Today on Something You Should Know, the wrong thing to say if you want your kids to eat healthy. Then, have the dangers of sun exposure been overblown? What about the benefits of sunshine? And what's the connection between sunscreen and skin cancer?
You're going to get me in so much trouble on this one. This is a hotly debated topic. Most studies that have been done that have looked at use of sunscreen and skin cancer end up showing that more sunscreen use correlates with higher rates of skin cancer.
Also, if you think wearing horizontal stripes makes you look heavy, think again. And astrology.
Chapter 2: Have the dangers of sun exposure been overblown?
Science has disproved it, but millions of people still follow it.
Most people know or have access to the information that science has disproved astrology. But most of them have a personal experience with astrology that seems very convincing on an emotional level.
Chapter 3: What are the benefits of sunshine that we often overlook?
All this today on Something You Should Know.
Hey, it's Hillary Frank from The Longest Shortest Time, an award-winning podcast about parenthood and reproductive health. We talk about things like sex ed, birth control, pregnancy, bodily autonomy, and of course, kids of all ages.
Chapter 4: What is the connection between sunscreen and skin cancer?
But you don't have to be a parent to listen. If you like surprising, funny, poignant stories about human relationships and, you know, periods, The Longest Shortest Time is for you. Find us in any podcast app or at LongestShortestTime.com.
Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.
Have you ever begged a child to eat your broccoli because it's good for you? Don't do that. Don't ever do that. And I'll tell you why. I'm Mike Carruthers and welcome to Something You Should Know. So if you've ever asked a child to eat their beans or their carrots because it's good for you, you may have actually just talked them out of it.
Research has found that preschoolers often believe that healthy food and tasty food are never the same thing. So when adults say carrots will make you strong, smart, and healthy, kids become less interested in eating them. In experiments, children actually ate less food when it was described as healthy than when the exact same food was described as tasty. Why?
Well, young children seem to think food has one job. Either it tastes good or it's good for you, but not both. So the moment you start selling the health benefits, they assume the flavor must be the sacrifice. The takeaway for parents is surprisingly simple. Skip the nutrition lecture.
Just put the vegetables on the plate, eat them yourself, and if you say anything at all, tell your children they're delicious. Sometimes the fastest way to get a kid to eat a carrot is to stop explaining why they should. And that is something you should know. To hear people talk, you would think that going out in the sun is about the worst thing you could possibly do for all sorts of reasons.
And if you do go out, you better slather on the sunscreen if you know it's good for you. Curiously, the use of sunscreen is at an all-time high, and so is the rate of skin cancer. That seems odd to me. Sunlight has a lot of benefits that we seldom hear about.
For example, it's an excellent source of vitamin D, but you have to go out in the sun to get it, and if you do, your skin can't be covered in sunscreen. The point is that the blanket advice of stay out of the sun as much as you can may not be very good advice at all. And here to explain all this is journalist Rowan Jacobson.
His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Scientific American, National Geographic, and many other places. He's the author of a book called In Defense of Sunlight, The Surprising Science of Sun Exposure. Hey, Rowan, welcome to Something You Should Know. Hey, Mike, really fun to be here.
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Chapter 5: Why has the perception of sun exposure changed over the years?
People who are spending more time in the sun or people who might have very fair skin and might need it more. So, of course, they're going to get more skin cancer. But then later studies came along and adjusted for that. And there's often still... higher rates of skin cancer in the sunscreen users, the ones who use sunscreen more. So it's unclear. But that doesn't make sense to anyone.
Because in the lab, you put sunscreen on a mouse, and it effectively blocks the UV from hitting the mouse and will lower the mouse's chance of getting skin cancer in the lab. So why doesn't that necessarily translate to the real world is unclear. The experts I've spoken with definitely do think that, you know, proper use of sunscreen of modern sunscreens will reduce your risk of
of skin cancer they're just hoping like waiting for better studies to come along to show that i think um i think part of the issue here is that sunscreen formulas have changed quite a bit over the years um the old ones were just not very good and that's that's clear like they only blocked uvb rays not uva rays and at the time people thought uvb was the only ray that could cause skin cancer.
We now know that UVA is actually probably a significant cause of skin cancer. So those old sunscreens were keeping you from burning, because UVB is what causes a burn. But we're not blocking UVA, and in fact, might have allowed you to stay out in the sun longer and get more UVA, because you weren't burning. So those sunscreens from the 60s, 70s, and 80s were probably pretty bad news.
The new ones are a lot better than that.
I remember hearing, I don't know, 10, 15, 20 years ago, that one of the reasons that there's more incidents of skin cancer has to do with holes in the ozone and that the sun is hot. I don't remember what the arguments were. But is any of that true or has the sun stayed pretty much a constant and we're changing somehow?
Yeah.
There was an era when that was true, and it was mostly an issue in Australia and New Zealand. The use of certain chemicals in like spray products and things like that. We started to eat away at the ozone that blocks certain amounts of UV. There's an ozone layer in the atmosphere that blocks UV. And we got this ozone hole in the 70s and 80s. It really started to become apparent.
But then we had the Montreal Protocol and got rid of the class of chemicals that was eating up that ozone. One of the great environmental successes of all time, probably. And so those holes have closed pretty much everywhere. And the last remaining ones are continuing to close. So we pretty much fixed the ozone problem. And that was a great success.
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Chapter 6: What does science say about the health benefits of sunlight?
Sunlight damages the collagen and the elastin in your skin and these are a couple of different uh proteins that give your skin its suppleness and its springiness and just like you know sunlight will damage your your upholstery right it kind of chews up those those proteins that give your skin its bounce and so that eventually leads to wrinkles uh and there's no question
So then I guess that's the trade-off question. If it's improving your health, but it's giving you wrinkles, maybe that's what healthy old age should look like.
You've certainly answered a lot of questions that I've had about this that you don't hear from dermatologists, which is basically stay out of the sun and use a lot of sunscreen. And that's really the blanket response that I've ever gotten. I've never heard anyone say, no, you should go out in the sun a little more. No one's ever said that. So... It's good to hear some balance in this.
It's probably time that we heard that. I've been speaking with Rowan Jacobson. He is author of the book In Defense of Sunlight, The Surprising Science of Sun Exposure, and there's a link to his book in the show notes. Rowan, thank you so much. Thanks, Mike. It was my pleasure. If astrology is nonsense, why won't it die?
Thousands of years after it began, millions of people still check their horoscope, know their zodiac sign, consult astrologers for advice about love, money, and life decisions. In fact, astrology may be more popular today than ever. So how did this ancient belief system get started? Why has it endured so long? And when science puts astrology to the test, What happens?
Here to explore the surprising history and scientific reality of astrology is Carlos Orsi. He's an award-winning science journalist with more than 30 years of experience covering science, and he is author of the book, What Science Says About Astrology. Hi, Carlos. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me. Sure. So I have a question.
You know, for the longest time, people have been able to, back in the day, open the newspaper and get their horoscope. People can go online and get their horoscope for the day. Where does that come from?
Well, nowadays artificial intelligence can do otoscopes because there are certain sets of rules and even stock phrases that go into otoscopes. They can really be easily combined. That's something that scientific tests have done. They created random otoscopes from stock phrases and people really can't distinguish them from the real thing.
And so what is the real thing? Where did astrology come from and what is it exactly?
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